Click
by WhosThatGirl.ItsLucy
Summary: AU. Nick Miller moved to LA a year ago, and is at the beginning of Junior year in HS. He doesn't understand California girls and just wants to meet someone he can just 'click' with, when he sees a new transfer student on the bus en route to school. T for language and potential later content.
1. Bus Journey

**Click**

**A/N: OK, so I am literally the worst person at updating stories EVER. I just never bother getting past chapter one, and I think it's because I worry that my stories won't make sense because obviously the plot in the show ends up being totally different. So here is an AU story, cos I can do whatever with it!**

**Pre-warning, I'm British, and have referenced high school and stuff, and my references may be way off, and my stereotypes of California may be completely wrong, many apologies!**

**I hope you enjoy it, please review etc, would love to know what you think, and whether a Nick/Jess AU like this works! Much Love, Lucy! xx**

Nick Miller was not particularly athletic, smart, nor classically good-looking, but somehow he'd wound up in the popular crowd at school. Not the varsity, letterman jacket-wearing, cheerleader-dating type, but the funny guy that everyone knew, and couldn't help but like. Sure, he was a little on the grumpy side, but people liked it, and thought he was amusing.

He'd moved to LA from Chicago a year ago, and although it had taken a while to settle in, he was still the new kid, but in a good way, where everyone was still intrigued and wanted to get to know him. He'd passed the overall likeability test, and been accepted into a clique of people who were different to him, in the sense that they were cool and everyone in school wanted to be them. Nick wasn't entirely sure if he was comfortable with this; the idea that people lower down on the social scale hated to love him, since he was one of them back in Illinois. The popular crowd in LA were a whole different animal to the jocks in Chicago too, more superficial.

In his bedroom, he had photos of him with his brother and his father, taken on the other side of the country; and pictures from his leaving party he had with his small, close group of buddies. He'd known them his whole life and couldn't believe they'd be broken up…even if they'd hardly kept in frequent contact since he'd moved. He missed them, and was desperate to meet someone he just 'clicked' with, which was proving hard, since California is a completely different culture. Everything was different here. People hung out on beaches casually, and carbs were more important than baseball…even to the GUYS.

It was early morning on Monday, and Nick was getting ready for school that day. Luckily, on Mondays there were two free periods in his day, and so it was more relaxed, and a nice way to ring in his week/ During fourth period on his free he usually went to the beach with Joe, Alex, Luke and a few of the girls; one of which – Janey – had a slight 'thing' for him according to the guys, and they were constantly telling him to "tap that", but he just didn't like her THAT way. She was sexy and hot, but Nick was more a 'pretty and beautiful' kinda guy, though he'd never tell these guys that. He needed to get through the last 2 years of high school and he didn't wanna be alone for that!

The bus ride to school was long; traffic was a bitch, plus the crazy heat still got to him since he wasn't used to it. It seemed to make time drag when he was this uncomfortable. He sat at the back, but wished he hadn't, he would be one of the last to get off this thing. Two stops after he climbed on, a bunch of people came on; most he knew, but there was one he didn't It was the first day back after break, and so far this nerdy looking guy had sat in front of him. Nick silently pondered to himself if they'd be any more newbies. He liked it when newbies arrived, it made him less and less likely to be called "the new guy" by everyone, as there were replacements for that title.

He heard a commotion somewhere near the middle of the bus – someone bustling and apologising to everyone. A girl…a NEW girl. She had a brand new unwrapped large art folder under her arm, which clearly kept brushing peoples arms as she walked down the aisle to find an available seat. Hers was the last stop before school, so there were only three seats left. One was next to David Noble, a large kid who had a good relationship with his doughnuts. He took up the majority of the seat next to him, and Nick could tell by her face that she wasn't keen on the idea of one-cheek-on-one-cheek-off on a bumpy school bus ride. The second seat was next to Rose Chatswin. Rose was a pleasant girl, who was kind, but she clearly didn't use deodorant, and you could smell her if you were stood three people down, let alone if you were sat next to her. Again, Nick looked at the new girl's face to judge her reaction. She was relatively poker-faced, but he could see her eyes widen discreetly, as she turned around and faced Nick. The same Nick that had an empty seat in front of him. As she turned around to sit down, she swivelled her folder out from under her arm, to place between her feet whilst sat down, but on its journey round, it brushed past Nick's knee, as Jess took her seat. She turned around straight away, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I've been doing that to everyone today-", she stopped suddenly. She just looked at him for three excruciatingly long seconds, and then smiled a beautiful smile.

"Hi…I'm Jessica Day…well, Jess, I hate being called Jessica. It's hot today, huh? I've just moved here from Oregon, so this heat is alien to me!".

Time passed, and Nick realised he was just looking forward, at Jess. He noticed he had a grumpy face on, which wasn't what he was going for, but he was simply transfixed by her. She was no Janey – no. She was so different to her, so…arty? Maybe he just thought that because of the art folder, but she seemed so interesting and odd, people don't just introduce themselves to one another, there were usually games involved at this age.

"I'm sorry, I'm just a morning person, didn't mean to be weird...or clumsy, with my folder and all…I'll leave you alone now."

"Nick, I'm Nick. Nick Miller, sorry, I'm just…yeah. It's ok about the folder, you woke me up in time for school so, yeah, we're cool".

She was new, and had moved from an entirely different state, so she'd understand his dislike for this temperature, and think the way some people were was a little bit odd, like the carb thing. She didn't seem the type to be obsessive over the latest Clinque, or read the nutrition section on packs of candy, or watch E! News to see what crazy shit Britney had done now. She was fascinating.

And then she did that smile again. It was perfect, and she was so chirpy even at 8:30am. He'd never believed in opposites attracting before, but he was starting to since he was The Grump, and she was JESS. Like he thought, she was no Janey, and this may just be that person he could click with.


	2. Homeroom

**A/N: Hello again! I managed to write a second chapter! Hurrah! Hoping this is OK-ish and that I've kind of stuck with what the characters are actually like. Still in Nick's POV, might change that around soon! As always, I LOVE reviews (hint hint), even if they aren't positive, always useful getting advice on it etc, lemmie know whatcha think.**

**Also, THAT KISS. Let's face it, we all fainted a little at that. I hope it wasn't just me anyways. Thought I'd update this now, to give myself a week to get over it, and write about a different topic to it. Quick shout-out to Crissandcasper cos she's the best person to fangirl over New Girl with EH-VURR. Haha! Thanks y'all.**

Nick was sat in homeroom, dreading his Calculus class coming up. He was terrible with numbers and his cranky old teacher was the type to humiliate you if you got an answer wrong. He'd actually done his homework for once though; his mom had gone crazy at him when she'd received a phone call about Nick's pending academic failure. He was acing other classes, such as English and History, but he needed those to go to law school one day, and math didn't hold much interest for him.

He found himself doodling on textbook someone had left behind on the desk the previous day, and realised he'd drawn a grumpy face. Maybe this suited him perfectly, he's always been the aggressive type; not the type to fight, but just constantly complain about everything. This was one of the things that just made him confused about the fact he had never been short of friends, was it the nicer you were the less friends you had? Perhaps if he was nicer, he's have more GOOD friends, instead of these people he pretended he'd keep in touch with once school ended.

Some girls who were in his friendship group were laughing…or giggling. It wasn't a nice laugh, it was a mocking one. He wondered who was at the receiving end of their bitching, so looked in the direction of their not-so discreet pointing. It was surprising to see that girl from the bus this morning again…Jess? NOT Jessica, if he remembered correctly. Why would they laugh at her? Then again, some girls didn't need a reason exactly, they just did it to make themselves look better.

"Oh my god, what is that skirt?!"

"It's like something from a Broadway show, and not in a good way…eww!"

"I know, it's like WHAAAT. I need sunglasses..eurgh."

It was Janey, the girl who liked him, and her girlfriends. In his mind he couldn't help but defend Jess, what was wrong with wearing a bright skirt? And why did he care? She seemed nice enough, maybe too nice; he didn't think it was normal to be so awake in the morning, especially on the first day of school. Miss Haddon – his teacher for homeroom – pointed Jess in the direction of an empty seat, just behind Nick's. She sat down and Nick could hear her clumsily arranging all her junk again, underneath her desk. He heard her apologising to everyone sat around her, and he felt a laugh passing his lips.

"See, Nick totally gets it, he's laughing too, quit being boring Brit. I can't believe she just hit Joe with that great big art book thing!"

He didn't even notice the girls continuing their conversation, but got snapped back to reality once he heard his name. Apparently one of them, Brit had told them to stop it, and they'd thought Nick was laughing at Jess too…but he realised he was thinking about her, and paying attention to what she was doing. He found it amusing that she'd been doing exactly the same now with hitting people with her folders, but apparently the girls didn't find it endearing, since Jess had just hit one of their boyfriends. Maybe Janey was just trying to impress him by being mean to her. He knew Jess was pretty, THAT much was obvious. Perhaps to other girls this was threatening.

That's when he felt a sharp corner poke the back of his leg quite hard. He cussed, and grabbed his leg, and heard a familiar voice apologise to him for the second time that day. As he turned around he noticed recognition had come to her features, and a smile appeared on her face. It was the kind of smile that you couldn't NOT smile back to, no matter how grumpy you are as a person.

"Oh my god, Nick, right? Hi..again! Sorry, I didn't mean to hit your leg with m folder, again, it's just-"

All of a sudden, Janey piped up, "Hey, you've already hit him? What's your problem? Sooo weird, god. You need to look where you're going, or you'll have issues with some people here, ok?!"

This was annoying to Nick. He was about to have a conversation with Jess, and Janey had to ruin it. Problem was that Nick couldn't even say anything to her about it if he wanted to keep his relatively cool status. He wasn't sure why he cared about that, but he had to let it slide.

He looked away from Janey and back to Jess; she looked absolutely humiliated. Nick knew the feeling of first days at new schools too well, and he had been lucky at this one, he'd been accepted, could he let this embarrassment happen to quirky Jess?

He lowered his voice and fully turned around to her, since the other girls had gone back to a conversation about Team Edward vs Team Jacob, or something equally boring. "Look Jess, I'm sorry about that. Get a locker, and put that stuff in it, just a bit of advice."

The bell rang and everyone started to get out of their seats, except Jess. Nick had his rucksack over one shoulder, and was ready to leave when he noticed her sat there digging through her satchel, with a confused but determined expression.

He had to ask…"Anything I can help you with?". She carried on, exasperated. "Seriously, you need to move, people will be in here for class in a minute, let's go."

She looked up at him for a second. Those eyes. Wow. Never mind, had to get her moving, they were the last two left in the room, and he didn't want to be late for calculus, to give his teacher another excuse to hate him.

"I have no idea where I'm going, I don't know how to get a locker, and I've lost my map of the school. So no, you can't help me, I'm a hopeless case." This shocked Nick, a hopeless case? Wasn't she the happiest person in California 10 minutes ago. With a sigh he agreed to help her, by picking up the infamous art folder. "Let's get this to a locker, then I'll tell you where you're going, I guess."

He couldn't help it. She wasn't a vile cheerleader type, and she wasn't a weird goth girl either, she seemed…cool? Not "in-crowd" cool, but cool because she WASN'T cool, in the same way as liking Journey was before Glee happened.

She stood up, pulled herself together, and got moving. She walked down the corridor a little to student services in silence, and not a comfortable silence either.; the kind when you don't know someone and topics are running through your mind, trying to select one that would fill the silence for a few seconds. "New school then. I was new here last year, so I get how you feel. I didn't lose my map though, and picked up my locker key as soon as I arrived. What did you do before homeroom?"

"I sat on the hill outside, and started to make a daisy chain…why?" It was impossible not to smirk at that, she was so strange, and said 'why?' with a straight face, as if she genuinely didn't think that was odd. They picked up her key, ran to her locker, and realised that she was 2 doors down from him for her calculus class. "Jess, we are SO late. I needed to be on time today, run...RUN!" She wasn't running, she was dawdling. He grabbed her arm to get her attention, quickly pointed to where she was going, and ran for his own class. By the time he got there, class had already started and Ms Corby looked at him with an unsurprised eye roll.

"Mr Miller, late again? Shocking. Detention. Sit down, and don't annoy me today."

He was a little pissed at Jess, she'd made him late on the one time it was important, and now he was going to suffer for it for the next hour, but there was a thought at the back of his mind, that it would be completely worth it.


	3. Calculus

**A/N: Two updates in the space of 24 hours! This is so beyond unlike me…however, this is partially because it's 1am UK time and I can't sleep, so am full of FF ideas. Flip-side is that it maybe be full of rubbish fuelled by the fact I'm half-asleep.**

**THIS ONE IS FROM JESS' P.O.V.!**

**Enjoy! Also…review? Go on, y'know ya want to ;)**

Y'know when you ask people what their least favourite class is at school, they can answer you within five seconds or so? Jess Day was not one of those people. Ever since she could remember, she'd wanted to be a teacher, and wanted to keep her options open in what she could teach, so had never been closed-minded and tried to do her best in every subject, and find the positives in each one. Even in science, and they were studying rocks, she'd end up being fascinated by the way they could have come from volcanoes etcetera.

However, today there was a problem. No matter how much you may look forward to a particular hour in a day for a certain class, all the rules are reversed on your first day at a new school. Things are confusing, as you're picking up at a different point in a subject to where you left off, and you haven't got your best friends around you, to make fun of the teacher, or find jokes in what was being taught. Jess felt utterly lonely, for the first time in a very long time. She'd only met one person who was nice at this school so far, and even he seemed a bit annoyed with her. His name was Nick, he had light-ish brown hair, which was scruffy and unkempt, and the darkest eyes she'd ever seen.

She'd met him in the morning, and instantly thought he was pleasant, since he was the one person who she hit with her new –and oversized - art collection folder, that didn't give her a nasty look, or make a comment at her. He just looked at her with a dazed expression for a while and listened to her ramble, before returning the introductions. Jess would admit, she was stunned for a second when she first laid eyes on him, he was just her type. He had a red and black lumberjack shirt on and jeans, which was so refreshing compared to these Abercrombie types, who looked ridiculous. There were none of these over-the-top guys back home, and Nick just didn't look like a California guy…and he was HOT.

So imagine her surprise when she crashes (literally, art folder chaos, Round Two) into homeroom, and BAM, again, she has to sit in the near vicinity of one Nick Miller. Her heart was going crazy walking up to her chair…until the moment was ruined by some girls sitting next to Nick. They were so preppy and wore too much make-up. She could tell they were the Queen Bees, and was wondering if her judgement of Nick had been way off, he surely couldn't be THAT guy? Nick laughed with them, and it felt like her world was broken for a second, before reminding herself that the two hadn't even had a proper conversation yet, and that he wouldn't be able to recall her name in all likelihood.

She'd be lying if she said she didn't purposely nudge Nick with her folder again to get his attention, to see if he noticed her walking in, and if he remotely remembered her from the bus this morning. The issue was, she nudged him a little too hard…and he reacted in an undesirable way.

"FUUUCK! Oww, Jeeesus!", Jess felt bad after this, as she watched Nick rub the back of his leg, or the scene of the crime as it were. He turned around, and she saw him recognise her straight away, before the moment got ruined again by that awful popular girl making another offensive comment. This is what utter embarrassment felt like. There is nothing worse in this world than your crush making fun of you, or seeing other people make you look stupid in front of your crush. Wait…crush? That was fast.

When he apologised, the feeling of relief was over-whelming. He was OK with her, and knew those girls were dreadful. She never wanted to leave homeroom, she just wanted to be here with him forever. But of course, when you want something so badly, it has to end. The bell rang, at which point, a thought crossed her mind. Where the hell am I going? She'd been given a map when she came for her meeting with the principal a few weeks before, to admit her to the school. Now, where was it? She regretted bringing such a big bag, not only because it didn't help with her clumsiness and hitting other people with her oversized "luggage" she'd brought with her to school, but also because it was going to be mortifying if Nick saw her looking dumb again, conducting a search through this monstrosity of an accessory. The map was nowhere to be found, and neither was anybody else but Nick…it was just the two of them. She heard Nick say something, but in her panic wasn't sure exactly what. She just looked up at him, with what she was sure ended up being a pathetic expression on her face. She snapped and ranted about her problems. If he was a nice guy, he'd understand. His response to this, was to confirm Jess' suspicion that he wasn't a typical California type, he was new here last year; and to help her out, despite the fact this would make him late himself. Yes, he was definitely her crush.

Half an hour later, Jess was still replaying everything in her mind, as you do when you discover that you really like someone. She'd noticed that she'd only done two of the calculus questions from her textbook, out of fifteen they were supposed to have done by now. This was meant to be her best subject, other than art! She realised it's because she wished she was a couple of doors down in HIS calculus class, but then again she'd be staring at him instead of concentrating. Her teacher, Mr Buckby, had made her introduce herself in front of everyone, but she was still panicky over what she was doing, and mumbled the majority of it.

She knew she'd just have to get through another five lessons that day, before the day was over and she could obsess over this properly when she was alone at home. She wouldn't be able to tell her parents much about her first day, because she knew what it would be all about for her. Maybe she'd find a big flaw with Nick before the day was up, and she was being seriously impulsive. Sometimes she did that, she just did something cos it seemed fun to do, or it seemed like a good idea, and liking Nick was just one of these things. She'd be bored soon, right? Maybe he'd be one of these guys who was obsessed with grunge music, or thought Marylin Monroe was over-rated. Maybe he actually did like those girls he was sitting with, and was actually a total jerk. Or worse, maybe he was a fake jerk who thought popularity was more important than being yourself.

If there was once thing Jessica Day was good at, it was being herself, no matter how odd she was; so it was time to concentrate, do some calculus, and remember not to change who she was just because some guy was nice to her in homeroom. Although of course, she'd have to steal a chance to speak to him later. What? She's only human.


	4. Afternoon

**A/N: Again, writing at silly o'clock UK time. Not entirely pleased with this chapter, but I just wanted to build foundations for later storylines. Please review, would be lovely to get feedback! Thanks for reading! Much love xx**

Exhaustion overcame Jess, first days were the WORST. She'd spent the last 5 hours thinking about someone she'd only just met that morning, but had ignored her for the rest of the day…she was so sure they'd had some kind of spark?

At lunch, the cafeteria was packed, and there was the dilemma of "Where am I supposed to sit?". There was nothing worse than standing there casually glancing over the room, trying to look calm, even though you didn't know a single person in the room before you. In the distance she noticed Nick, but he was sat with the hoes from this morning and some other guys who looked way cooler than him. She didn't get it, how did this person who was secretly a nice guy end up being friends with THEM? He was laughing with the girl who's been the most offensive that morning, and Jess' heart ahced as she noticed he may have a thing for her. It sure looked like it, he was talking to only her on their table, and was looking straight at her.

Everyone knew she looked like a loner, just lost and confused; but she did what she had to do in the scenario. She left. She took her sandwich and juice and had to sit outside by herself on the hill which overlooked the football pitch. She was in a day-dream when she was disturbed by a tall Indian girl, interrupting her self-pity.

"...Hi? Why are sat all by yourself? Don't you have somewhere to be?" The girl said it in a non-offensive voice, more a caring one, but there was something about it which still verged on rude. Still, right now it made her look less weird to everyone else who could possibly see her, if she was speaking to someone; especially since this girl didn't exactly look like the loser type, she was the most classically pretty person Jess had ever seen.

"Honestly? No. I'm new, and haven't exactly done so well to fit in. I hit some popular guy with my art folder, and another guy twice. I mean, I started to get along with one of them OK I guess, but I don't think he's a long-term friend. He probably just had a moment of feeling sorry for me…wait, you don't wanna hear this right? Sorry…" She'd noticed that she'd been rambling to a total stranger, who she didn't even know the name of. This girl must think she'd so weird, she never even asked for this, she may have come over to take the piss for all Jess knew.

"It's OK, I'm Cece, look it's fine on your first day to be a bit…I dunno, quiet? But if you actually wanna survive this place, you gotta try a bit harder. I'm sat with some friends over there, wanna join?". She wasn't in a position to say no. The feeling of relief was like a tidal wave. If Jess could fit in, in Los Angeles, she could fit in ANYWHERE. "So, I really like your skirt, gotta love polka-dots. Much better than some of these hussies that turn up in a skirt that JUST covers their ass, right? It's like, I'm trying to eat lunch here, jeez." That clinched it, Jess wanted to be Cece's friend, straight away.

The next hour passed fairly quickly, time always flies when something good is happening, but as soon as it was over, it was back to afternoon homeroom. She knew she'd have to face Nick and Janey again, and pretend not to be jealous. The fews times she'd seen them together caused a funny feeling in her tummy that hurt, but at the same time made her want to cry. She'd never been like this about anyone, let alone someone she'd only met hours earlier. However, when everyone had arrived, Janey and her clan were missing. Nick turned around to face her, and she felt like she had to pretend she hadn't noticed and continued staring at the clock.

"Hey, Jess…Jess? Jess, I'm literally right here. Are you ignoring me?"

"What? Oh, hi Nick, no I wasn't, was just thinking about…" She looked around for something to say, "…desks. There's, erm, so many. They all look the same-"

"-riiight. OK. Sooo…how's your first day here? Not too bad, right? I mean, those girls weren't great this morning, they aren't here now though, they went to the mall ro whatever it is they do. Whatcha got next?"

She knew she'd gone red, this always happened to her. Desks? DESKS?! So many of them? Oh, how wonderfully fascinating Jess, what was she thinking?! Right, time for brain to engage. "It's OK, I guess, I met some friends, this girl Cece introduced herself in lunch hour, she was cool. Y'know, nice and stuff. I think I have art next, I'll have to drag that hideous folder out of my locker, I'll try not to kill anyone this afternoon." He smiled at her, and then did some kind of upside down smile, but it wasn't a sad face, more one of bemusement, it reminded her of a turtle for some reason. His turtle-face.

All of a sudden, Janey and her minions walked in, and she walked right over to Nick and started playing with his hair. Jess put her headphones in, she didn't want to know. 'Us' by Regina Spektor was filling the hole in her soul at that moment, and in the one moment she did bother to look up, the SuperBitch was slightly nodding her head in Jess' direction, indicating she was being vile about her again. Jess wondered if Janey saw Jess as a threat, why else would she have a problem with Nick talking to her? She flounced off again, towards a desk the other side of the room; her and Nick were clearly no longer on the best of terms for the rest of the day. She felt it was time to try get some conversation with Nick again, even if it was about something pointless, every second was valuable when you're trying to create a first impression. She said his name four times, and he wouldn't respond. When he finallyt di turn around, it was a look of warning, and only to say "Didn't you notice? We can't talk right now, she's JUST THERE Jess. Just leave it, OK? You're better off not being friends with me, anyhow."

The rest of the afternoon dragged, it HURT. Why did he suddenly change on her? Surely Janey wasn't THAT much of an influence upon him? Why did he have to abide by her bidding? Maybe if he was like that, he wasn't worth worrying over, but she just couldn't get the feeling out of her mind. She had two classes left, it was double art, which before she'd met Nick, she was so excited about. Art was her 'thing', it was what she was brilliant at, and it's where she could let her thoughts go wherever she wanted them to, and get graded for it. But now, when she needed to concentrate, and pick up on the syllabus, all she could think about is what assholes guys could be.

Two hours later, she flopped onto her bed. Tomorrow was a different day, where hopefully she wouldn't have to think about That Boy. She'd look at him, and he wouldn't look so sexy, she'd find his features unattractive; the the very same ay she looked at him today and thought he was a stunner. It's that easy, just look at him, and it will be different…right?


	5. Apologies

**A/N: I've been listening to a song called Pompeii by Bastilles all afternoon, and it's put me in a spectacular mood, so the whole writing thing is happening! Hope you enjoy, let me know if there's ways I can improve etc! Hope y'all enjoy!**

**Also…ya should listen to the song I just mentioned on youtube, it's AWESOME. **

When he walked into his house, Nick couldn't be bothered to deal with his idiot brother. Jamie was OK, they got along well as siblings, but sometimes he was too not-with-it to hold a long conversation about anything meaningful. All Nick knew was that his day had been turned on it's head.

He lay on his bed for hours thinking about the new girl in class. She was damn beautiful, and seemed sincerely innocent. She wasn't devious and tactical like Janey and Brit; yet he'd still been mean to her for no apparent reason. He knew he'd acted shitty during the day and when thee had actually been time to have a conversation about it later on in the day, Janey walked in at just the wrong moment.

Nick had no idea she'd walked in yet, since she was late. She never turned up if she was more than 5 minutes late, so he wanted to make amends with Jess. He swivelled his chair to face her, and he couldn't help but just look at her for a few seconds. She had a fringe that she's pinned back into a small quiff since this morning. He remembered the fringe, since it was so different to these other girls, and because he couldn't look at her eyes before much. But now, her eyes are blaringly obvious to him, her hair no longer creating a barrier between their eye contact. She looked up at him, and straight back down again, uncomfortable with the situation…or angry, perhaps?

"Hey Jess…Jess?" She wasn't looking up…checking for headphones…no, she WAS ignoring him. "I'm literally right here. Are you ignoring me?". He had no right to be annoyed, he'd only had minimal conversation with this girl today…well, ever. But something about her was just…intriguing. Making things right again so they could continue to build a friendship was essential. When she finally did give up and talk to him, she made some weird comment about desks, which gave off an obvious sign off awkwardness, but she did indulge him in a few seconds of her time, talking about a new friend she'd made, Cece. Nick knew Cece, she was hot, but all the guys were after her, and she wasn't Nick's type. She didn't seem like a horrible person or anything, so he guessed he felt relieved that Jess had found someone…and surprised it was a generic hottie.

As she always does, The Queen Bee strode over, tardy, and ruined the moment, just as Jess was starting to forgive him. He saw Jess put her headphones in and took that as his cue to leave her alone. Janey scolded him for daring to look at another female, and reminded him how "lucky" he was to be friends with him…

"Jay, you are my FRIEND. If I wanna talk to Jess, I will."

She didn't need another cue, she flounced off, reminding Nick of something out of Mean Girls. Who did she think she was? He was too angry, so when the stunner sat behind him tried to strike up conversation again, all he could do was snap, and cease the topic so he didn't get too many of his current crowd pissed off at him.

The bus ride back was atrocious, at least she didn't have her art folder with her this time, and Nick could tell she was super careful not too nudge or disturb anybody. She'd had a bad first day, and he knew it was all down to him, and his grumpy, aggressive nature. He wished she'd never met him, so she could be on cloud 9 right now, instead of those doe eyes looking sad. He was an idiot. Since he didn't know her yet, he had no way of contacting her, to tell her he was sorry and explain why he was such an asshole, and tell her about Janey. He wanted to tell her all about Chicago, and the moment he found out he had to move out here, and see if her experience was the same.

He wanted to ask all about what she wanted her first day to be like, and to casually hang out with her, and ask why she was so quirky, or maybe take a less blunt approach and find out more details about her, to really get to know these quirks. He liked everything about her so far, even the way she looked so wounded when everything kicked off. She was vulnerable, and he sort of just wanted to make sure she was OK, and he had no idea why.

Without Jess' cell phone number, he'd have to settle for what all morons do in this situation. Facebook. She said her last name was…Dell? May? DAY! Jessica Day…one mutual friend? Oh, Cece. She'd already added her. It was definitely her. He opened the message tab and typed out his message:

"Hey Jess. It's Nick Miller, the guy from homeroom. You won't reply I guess, but just in case, I'm sorry. I've said that too many times in one day, since it was the first day I've ever met you, but yeah. Hoping we can talk properly some time. You're new to school, I'm sort of new. We'd get along I think. See ya tomorrow or something."

He swiftly sent a friend request, and checked twitter. Not much was happening on there, just more Justin Bieber trends that meant nothing. He forced himself to stay on twitter though, at least for ten more minutes so he would give her a chance of accepting the request. This was going to be a long ten minutes.

**A/N: OK, this may have been a tedious one, but I do plan to build on this. Hope it wasn't too dull! Haha! **


	6. Facebook

**A/N: I promise this is the last chapter on this one day! Gonna speed it up a little after this potentially! I just had to do a chapter leading from the facebook thing from the last one. Hope you're enjoying it, please review! S'always helpful for me to see if I'm going in the right direction on this :) Much love x**

There are certain qualms about "facebook stalking". If you admitted to it, people would look down their nose at you, and tell you it's not normal…or worse, to stop. Yet EVERYBODY has done it at some point. Nick Miller never had. Until now. It started with a simple apology message to Jess, all he wanted to do was get in contact with her briefly, hoping she wouldn't think he was a total dick. He dropped the message, and then went into a frenzied daze of looking at every detail on her page. An hour went by without him noticing, and he wasn't done yet.

As soon as he'd sent the e-mail, and sent a friend request, he's noticed Jess hadn't set her account to private, so he could look at her statuses. She's posted one 10 minutes ago:

"_I MISS YOU OREGON! Seriously though, I miss my girls, I miss Daisy's Diner…hell, I even miss English with Mr Kay! L.A. isn't as perfect as it seems, y'all."_

Sadness washed over him like a tsunami. Isn't as perfect as it seems? She expected this place to be perfect? He couldn't believe an out-of-towner like Jess would think moving to L.A. was going to be like a movie, she'd have sensibilities, like he did, surely? He knew the way he acted didn't help her, but perhaps she needed a reality check, she needed to know that when it came to high school in L.A., it was the same as anywhere, but maybe more superficial. He carried on looking through her facebook activity.

_Jessica Day liked Mumm-Ra._

_ Jessica Day commented on Cece Meyers status:_

_ "Thanks for everything today, nice to meet ya too!"_

_ Jessica Day shared a link:_

_ Darlington Street Bakery, Portland, Oregon_

_ "I want a DS Bakery cupcake NOW! Post me one someone?"_

Her statuses seemed to be about Oregon often, and he sympathised. The idea of going back to Chicago to see his old friends tugged at his heart, they were the people he'd known since he was a kid, and he would kill to hang out with his best friend from back home, Winston. They would hang out at the park, and just talk crap for hours, and he had no-one like that around here. He realised maybe that's why he was so bothered about Jess, he could imagine doing that with her for even longer, even if it was just as friends. Even if? He was getting ahead of himself. He'd had enough of seeing her statuses missing home, and missing other people. He wanted her to stop missing them and start wanting to hang out with him. Plus, he didn't want to think of missing home, as sappy as it was, it made him too sad.

He remembered Jess' eyes from earlier in the day. They were such a bright shade of blue, such a stark contrast to his moody, depressing dark brown. He was taken aback by them; he'd never seen anything like it. Why she hid them behind her fringe, he wasn't sure. He wanted to see them again, but the only way this was possible was thorugh more profile searching. He clicked straight onto Photos on her page, and scrolled through. She was so hot…and happy. She only had one picture from L.A. so far, and it was of the view from her bedroom, so no shots with anyone yet. All the photos previous painted a picture of someone social though, and not the near-recluse she's already become in one day here. She had pictures at the Portland Fair with all her friends, there seemed to be a big group of friends, who she adored.

Then he saw one photo in particular. Jess was stood with a guy who had blonde, messy hair, holding him close to her, and planting a kiss on his cheek. Was this a boyfriend? He went back onto her profile page…it didn't have a relationship status specified, so he assumed she was single still, but if this was her ex, she wouldn't keep the pictures on facebook? Maybe they were just close friends? If she treated her close friends like this, he would need to get to know her a little better. The thought of that much contact with her made him shudder in the most pleasant way…must stop thinking about that.

There were pictures of her wearing novelty sunglasses and with her hair in silly bunches messing around with her equally unusual classmates. There were photos of her at her old school, with PCHS painted on her face, sitting in the bleachers watching a game of some variety. He couldn't see the pitch so didn't know which sport, but he wondered if Jess was into watching sports, and if so, which. Maybe she was just the type to get into school spirit, but it didn't seem that way already. Her profile picture was of her, a girl of about the same age, and an older lady, who Nick assumed was her mom. Nick clicked on the picture, and hovered over and saw the girl had been tagged, but she didn't have the same last name, so it wasn't her sister. The three of them were in a restaurant of some variety and smiling. He wondered how he would be able to make her smile, and if he could.

It was in that moment he knew that he had to stop being an ass, and forget about popularity. He couldn't care less about Janey, he knew that. When he thought back to Chicago earlier, it hurt him inside, and he longed for someone he actually gave a shit about, and he was sure of that even now. Jess had a certain vibe about her that was so easy to understand, yet so complicated, and he couldn't wait to get to know her through conversation, not just by trailing through her profile. He had to get guts and DO SOMETHING about it.


	7. Room 304

Nick had met Jess on the Monday before, and the following seven days had been tedious and ridiculously slow. He'd been following a pattern of getting up, going to school, trying to get the courage to speak to Jess all day, failing at that plan, going home, bit of facebook stalking, then moping all evening before going to bed. It had been just one week, and he was already going insane. What if this wasn't going to stop anytime soon?

He arrived at the bus stop, waiting to go to school. Something was needed to keep him distracted, so he knew what it took for at elast 3 or 4 minutes: Daft Punk. Putting the volume on maximum, he was finally able to not think about her for a bit. The weekend had dragged, he hadn't seen her or heard her laugh across the room in homeroom, or been nudged by her art folder for too long; and the most crazy thing was that he knew within the space of twenty minutes he'd be pining after her whilst she sat the other side of the bus from him.

He had a feeling she'd been avoiding him all week, or at least trying to stay away. He must have really pissed her off…he had the idea that he'd try and win her around by being charming or sweet, but he knew he couldn't be either o those things, he was cynical. Maybe he could be funny? Make her laugh? But then he'd have to find a way to speak to her alone, where she couldn't go red and run away like usual.

He'd tried to talk to have a moment with her on Thursday, when she was on her way to art class, as she was walking alone, but as he shouted "Hey Jess!" from behind, she'd quickly turned around, noticed it was him, and picked up her pace. Nick wasn't stupid, following her after she clearly didn't want to know him was a bad idea, which was a killer.

She clambered onto the bus, dropping her sports bag in the process, followed by many apologies to the driver. Jess looked back, and saw Nick observing her. Red flushed over her face, and she fell into the nearest seat to the front. When homeroom arrived, the atmosphere in the room was awful, Monday mornings were always full of tiredness, and everyone was gutted that they had to be there after a brilliant weekend, except Jess who was glad to be back. She'd made good friends already in Cece, and her friends Jade, Amelia and a quiet, witty girl called Sadie; however her weekend was dull. The girls weren't good enough friends with her yet to spend all weekend hanging out, gossiping, so she spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday moping about Nick Miller. She'd forced herself to not think about Nick since he was an asshole to her on her first day, but she kept seeing him around, on the way to class, or sat across the room in French class. He'd tried to get her attention walking across the corridor the other day, but she didn't know what to say to him so tried to get away quickly. Perhaps she SHOULD give talking to him a go, sometimes the best of friends had terrible first impressions of each other but end up being crazy close.

When she'd gotten to homeroom, she sat in what was becoming her 'usual' seat on the second row to the left…whilst Nick was at the back on the right. She kept flicking her vision back, to get quick glimpses of him, to see if he was looking at her. Who was she kidding? He had probably forgotten about her now. Maybe that's why he wanted to speak to her the other day, to say sorry, but they should just carry on like normal now. The twenty minutes spent listening to the days notices and news from around the school had passed in a blur, and Nick was stood up the second the bell rang. Screw it, this was her chance. She chased to the other side of the room in a clumsy, unsubtle fashion.

Putting on her brave face, she raced forward and tapped him on his left shoulder. "Nick, Nick wait! I'm sorry, I know we aren't friends or whatever, but d'ya wanna talk sometime? I guess I've been quite rude to you this week…I understand if you don't wan-"

"Yeah Jess, that'd be cool, lunch time? Meet me outside room 304 at the beginning of lunch, or the cafeteria?"

"304 is good, it's near where my English lesson is just before…so, yeah, see you then. Thanks Nick."

Just as he told himself that perhaps he needed to give up, her smile brought him around. The net few hours were going to be the death of him, he couldn't wait to get to room 304.


End file.
